Chapter 4: Doors

Valentine and I walked into the church together and I immediately paused to make use of the restroom. I didn't have to pee, I hadn't felt that particular need since Valentine had bitten me, which seemed a rather happy benefit of my new condition. Merely I wanted to check my appearance, as becoming a vampire had little changed my vanity, such as it was. The clothes I wore had come from the girl I'd fed on - murdered - and they were simple and tasteful. A white button down blouse with a wide stiff collar, and a pleated skirt of royal blue. Knee high white socks and black low-heeled shoes. I recognized it as a uniform for one of the local private schools, a catholic school, and I wondered if there had been a reason Valentine had chosen her.

I brushed my hair, using some of the girl's bobby pins to clip it behind my ears, and painted my eyes and lips black, always my color of choice. It was a bare minimum, but I was happy with the way I looked anyway, like a corruption of innocence, especially the way my braless breasts pushed against the cotton of my shirt. My nipples were plainly visible and I tweaked them, giving each a pinch for my own amusement before I rejoined the patiently waiting Valentine.

"Jenna..." Christine saw me first as we entered the church study, and rushed to greet me. She kissed me on the lips and smiled, stepping back and looking me up and down. "It worked!"

"I knew it would," Sylvia smiled and kissed my cheek.

Julia was there as well, and Wendy, and they had their turns kissing and congratulating me. It seemed rather strange when I stopped to consider that I was technically dead and they were happy for me. I thought briefly of my mother, but I felt no guilt. I doubted she'd even noticed I'd been gone for two days now, but she soon would and I wondered what to do about that. And school, for that matter. People would miss me, I thought, and I had very little idea what I should plan for the future, or even how to begin.

"It'll be just us tonight," Julia told me. "We have a lot of explaining to do and we have to prepare you for your initiation, which is a small thing really..."

"Relatively small," Christine nodded.

" ... but necessary."

"We haven't had an Initiate since Mona joined," Wendy said. "That was a long time ago."

"It's exciting!" Christine laughed softly. "I'm so glad you survived."

"Me too," I smiled, feeling once again overwhelmed by their attention and I knew it wasn't only that. They were three succubi, demonic seductresses whose lightest touch and softest whisper could bring a mortal to his knees. They could hide behind the masks of normal women, but they couldn't contain all of themselves and just being close to them was intoxicating.

Valentine, being much stronger and more experienced then I, apparently didn't suffer them so greatly. "Get on with it, Julia. She needs to feed tonight. Jenna's still weak," he told her impatiently and Julia gave him a little frown.

"She has questions, Val," Sylvia spoke up. "She needs answers, not just blood. We have to establish trust before bonds, you know that."

"She trusts me," Valentine stated, caressing my cheek as I sat on the sofa.

"Of course she does," Julia said gently, "but what of the others? They must be assured. Now leave us, the girl can hardly think with you hovering over her shoulder like that."

I smiled up at him, taking Valentine's hand and kissing it. "I'll be fine," I promised him.

"I'll return soon," he said, and then looked briefly around the room at the other women before he left without another word.

"Valentine has been alone for a long time," Sylvia explained. "Far longer than any of us, it can make things ... difficult for him."

I just nodded at that, unsure of what to say. I understood instinctively that he was possessive of me, much more so now that I'd turned. But even before, from that first meeting I'd attended, Val had been a continuous presence near me. I could understand that, I thought, as I'd felt myself to be alone for a long time as well. I'd let him possess me, so long as he gave me his love in return.

"That will change now," Wendy predicted. "He'll change."

"Alright..." Julia changed the subject, bringing us to focus on what I needed to understand. "Our group, our Society isn't really about literature."

"I figured that much out," I smiled at her.

"Much of what you saw and heard the other night was..." Sylvia smiled, " ... a bit of masquerade."

"In case I didn't work out?" I asked with a smile of my own.

"Something like that. But literature is a very large part of what we do ... Our research," Julia nodded. "Do you know the bible? The old testament?"

"Not very well," I shrugged. "I guess I know some of the stories."

"Do you know the one about Lucifer challenging God, leading an army of angels in a war against heaven?"

"And Lucifer lost, right?" I said. "God cast him out and created Hell so Lucifer could reign over the sinners or something?"

"Close enough," Julia agreed. "There was a war and it's still being fought. It will be fought until the end of time and even God himself cannot predict the outcome."

"But God made everything, right? I mean, he made Lucifer, and heaven and hell, so..." I smiled, wondering how God could ever lose at anything.

"God did make everything, but he didn't make it as a man would and that's where understanding ends," Julia told me. "You've lived as a human and so you think as they do, that'll change over time. You'll see things and understand things which no mortal could imagine. What you need to know right now is simply this, that God made everything in such a way that once put into motion, it couldn't be stopped. Not even by him. He began a machine, if you like, a grand device which runs day and night according to laws which cannot be broken."

"There is more to creation than just the universe, Jenna," Christine said. "Heaven and hell don't exist within the bounds of time and space. We ourselves, all of us here and every member of our Society, exist outside the universe."

"Including you," Sylvia agreed.

"I don't understand," I shook my head. "I'm here, now, with all of you..."

"This place, this earth and the universe around it, is the key to the machine," Wendy told me. "The information we need to influence events elsewhere, to affect the future and end the war ... It's here."

"End the war?" I swallowed and looked around the room. "But you said the war doesn't end until the end of time..." Julia was nodding. " ... but heaven and hell don't exist in time, so..." I thought I almost had it, but my mind wouldn't stretch that far. I feared I was missing something simple and obvious.

"Time must end here," Julia nodded. "And the war will be won elsewhere."

"Both Heaven and hell cannot co-exist without the material plane," Sylvia said.

"The universe you mean." I rubbed my temple. "You want to destroy the universe?"

Julia smiled at that, "No, of course not. That's beyond anyone's power but for the universe itself, once certain conditions are met. What we're doing is looking for the keys to hasten those conditions, to influence events."

"And win the war," I nodded, having caught that part earlier. "So ... Whose side are we on?"

"You have to understand this is a very simplified explanation, Jenna," Sylvia told me. "This is kind of like trying to explain, I don't know, physics to a baby," she smiled at me. "And I don't mean that in bad way, it's just that you're new, you're inexperienced and just now learning that the world is not as you've known it."

"If you had to choose a side, right now..." Julia was staring at me, " ... God or the devil, which would it be?"

I swallowed nervously and the room was silent, everyone watching my face impassively. They were waiting to hear what I'd say.

"I can't ... I don't know," I said finally, truthfully. "I wouldn't choose, or I'd choose neither," I shrugged. "If that's the wrong answer, I'm sorry." I looked at their faces and settled on Julia's. "It's the truth. I choose not to choose."

Julia stared into my eyes as if trying to gauge my sincerity, but Sylvia was nodding as if she'd already known what my answer would be. Christine whispered something to Wendy, and the woman nodded her head. And I just sat there, waiting for judgment of one kind or another.

"I believe you," Julia said finally, and she smiled warmly into my face. "And so will the others."

I had the immediate sense that I'd passed some small test, but I didn't know how or why. It had seemed to me that of my possible choices, the one I'd made had been the least correct. I'd wanted desperately to take the side of God, and who wouldn't? But I hadn't felt His presence within me. I'd never felt it. If I were truly on His side, wouldn't I have known it already? But I'd killed, only once and recently, but nevertheless ... I'd killed the nameless girl whose clothing I was wearing, and I'd felt nothing for her. No guilt or remorse or grief for my actions. Surely I wasn't on the side of God.

And Lucifer, what did I know of him? Nothing at all really, except that he was an angel, a fallen angel who fought an unending war against heaven. I had no allegiance there, not yet anyway, although I suspected that I was bound for damnation eventually. I was a vampire, surely one of those cursed to burn in the fires of hell. But I felt nothing for his cause, whatever it might be. And honestly, I was just a sixteen year old girl, vampire or not, and my timeless soul was nothing but a rumor to me then. I was sixteen and the only thing I knew was that I knew nothing at all.

Valentine returned then, as if he'd been waiting for that very moment to reappear, and he swept into the room ignoring the looks from the women, focused only on me and I felt relieved by his presence. I rose to greet him, although it had been scarcely an hour we'd been apart and I kissed his hands.

"We are complete now, yes?" He looked at Julia and I followed his dark gaze, seeing the woman nod. "Then it is cause for a celebration!" he said loudly, smiling and stepping away from me, moving to a large cabinet where there were kept bottles of wine and glasses.

"Val," Julia shook her head, but she was smiling. "We have only tonight for this, please..."

"We have so much to tell her," Sylvia was saying. "We haven't even discussed the Circles."

"So? We'll speak of it over wine." Valentine returned, carrying six glasses and two bottles somehow, moving with all the grace I'd come to expect from him. He might have been a dancer for the Bolshoi Ballet and just watching him move was a pleasure for me. He was tall, and his black hair fell around his shoulders in waves. His full lips would pout, but only until he smiled and his eyes, so dark, I loved watching his eyes and remembering the fire that lay hidden within. He was beautiful.

And Val's humor was irresistible, of course, even for these women who had known him so long. It had nothing to do with Valentine's nature, or I should say his vampiric nature, it was quite simply who he was. Effusive and childlike, he appeared to be in his mid or late twenties, and he was far older than that, but he radiated youth. Valentine extended the glasses courteously and poured a measure into each of them but mine. I looked up at him from where I sat next to Julia and he smiled.

"None of that for us, my dear." Valentine put the bottle down carefully. "Rather, we shall have to suffer vintage of a higher caste." He produced a flask from his jacket, unscrewed the cap and poured fresh blood into my glass first, and then his own. "O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil," he said, holding up his glass and we all drank together. Valentine sat next to me then, touching his glass to mine without another word.

I found the blood warm and sweet to my taste and the sensation of it running down my throat sent a shiver through my body. I could feel myself thirsty for more and I felt tempted to drain the glass with two or three large swallows, but I was restrained by the presence of Julia's hand on my leg. I willed my hunger to sleep and contented myself with small sips while Julia spoke, savoring each of them on my tongue for a moment before I swallowed.

"We are complete, as Valentine said. There are six of us here and we are the Dark Circle," Julia said carefully, watching my eyes for understanding. "We are the servants of Lucifer, each of us for our own reasons, known or unknown. We are creatures who draw our life and power from his domain. Wendy, Christine, and I are succubi, as you already know. We were born of hellfire. You and Valentine are vampires, beings of the night, undead creatures who thirst for living blood. Sylvia is a witch of the old covenant. She has bargained her soul into Lucifer's keeping and is thus damned without hope of salvation."

"We are all of us denied Grace, Jenna," Christine said.

"Are we evil then?" I asked them collectively. "Is that what you're saying?"

"By human definition?" Sylvia smiled at me, "Oh yes, my dear. We've done terrible things, all of us, in the name of hunger, or lust, or simply because it has given us pleasure to do so."

"I don't feel evil," I said, giggling because it seemed a strange thing to discuss so seriously.

"Nor do I," Valentine shrugged. "But doubtless the parents of a certain young woman would judge us differently." His fingers played along the hem of my skirt.

I nodded at that, taking another sip of my 'wine' and feeling no guilt for the girl, nor for the blood we now shared. I wasn't even particularly curious as to where - whom - the blood I was drinking had come from. If I wasn't evil then I was truly apathetic, and what difference lay between the two seemed very remote.

"The Circle of Light has been complete for some time now, since our Sister Mona joined the Society. They too have six members. Your friend and teacher, Edward, is an arch-angel..."

"Mr. Raines is an angel?" The surprise must have been evident on my face because everyone smiled at me. "What, like Gabriel?"

"He hides it well, apparently," Valentine joked and the others laughed, but my question remained unanswered.

"I guess so," I blinked and drained my glass, almost wishing it really was wine. I could have used the alcohol right about then.

"We all have our disguises, Jen," Wendy told me.

"Samantha is a sorceress, as you know. Mona is an angel as well, one of the Virtues..."

"She's of the Fifth Order of Angels," Christine added for my benefit. "Her true name is Hope."

" ... David you have perhaps heard of by a different name," Julia continued. "He was known as Lazarus once."

"Lazarus?" I stared at her for a moment. "The man Jesus raised from the dead?"

"One and the same," Valentine chuckled. "And he isn't too happy about it."

"What? Why..." I rubbed my fingers over my lips and Valentine took it as a sign to refill my glass.

"He was dead," Wendy said with a shrug. "He saw the kingdom of heaven, walked in the Grace of God. When Jesus called him forth, Lazarus had to retreat from that."

"But wouldn't he be happy?" I wondered. "Being alive again?"

"Perhaps he would have been," Wendy replied, "if he'd lived a few years and died as people are meant to."

"But he didn't die," Christine took up the story. "He couldn't. Jesus had given him life anew and it's a life that cannot be taken away. He lives until the end of time and it's become like a punishment to him."

"He's hunted as much as any of us," Wendy said softly and I wanted to ask what she meant by that, thinking she may have said 'haunted', but I had no opportunity.

"That's why Lazarus is here," Julia said. "Why we're all here. We want the war to stop. We have chosen neither side, but our own. We don't care who wins or loses, so long as it is over. If God wins, we shall be reconciled..."

"Perhaps," Sylvia murmured.

" ... should Lucifer win, then too we must all be gathered as one, for good or ill. None of us can foresee the outcome, but we have seen the never ending conflict and we are determined that it should end."

"For better or worse," Valentine smiled at me.

"Sooo..." I considered what I'd just been told. "The Society is a gathering of angels and demons and..." I shrugged, " ... whatever we all are, who are joined to find a way to stop a war between heaven and hell."

"Keep going," Valentine rubbed my shoulder. "You're on a roll."

"And to stop the war, the universe has to end. Time has to end and that's ... uh, what is that?" I gave a frustrated laugh. "I'm lost."

"Armageddon," Julia shrugged. "The second coming, if you believe in that."

"Oh," I blinked at the obviousness of it. I'd been looking for something else, something ... I don't know, different. "We're trying to bring about Armageddon, the last battle? The end of mankind?"

"Every western religion has predicted an apocalypse," Christine said. "In one form or another."

"The end of time," Julia nodded. "And that's why your poem was so important. That, of all the things you might have offered us, all the literary works of history..."

"I gave you that one," I drank from my glass carelessly and I felt my chin stained crimson. "The Second Coming."

"It was a sign," Sylvia said. "An important one and you mustn't dismiss such things. They are more significant than you can know."

"What if I'd read something else? Kipling maybe, The Palace let's say..."

"When I was a King and a Mason..." Valentine laughed. "You should have, it would've been a delight coming from your lips."

"You didn't read that one," Sylvia smiled. "That's the nature of signs. You believe you have a reason for something, or perhaps no reason at all, and yet when the time comes..."

"Yeah," I sighed. "When the time comes."

I regarded all of them for a moment, trying to gather my wits and only barely succeeding. This was a lot of information, a lot of make believe, it sounded like, but I couldn't deny what I was. Or what I'd done.

"Why should I join you?" I asked them, speaking hesitantly and not wanting to offend them, but it was a question I needed answered as much as any other. "What do I care if the war stops or not? If God wins, or Lucifer ... Why does it matter to me?"

"It probably doesn't," Julia shrugged. "Not now anyway, but none of us began with a reason. No one could tell us why. We had to find it for ourselves. It may be that you'll never know why you're here, in this room at this moment ... But that you are is all the proof we require."